by Drake, Laura
He settled his cowboy hat on his head. “Your past is your business. No one will learn it from me.”
Taking care not to use his sore side, Cam shouldered open the back-door shortcut to the parking lot. Tucker and a few of the riders had tried to talk him into a drink at the bar, but he’d been there, done that many years’ worth. All he wanted was a good steak and some TV before bed.
You’re even starting to act like an old man. Next thing you know, you’ll be wearing pants around your armpits and growing hair out your ears.
The halogen lamps created artificial daylight on the pavement just beyond the overhang of the loading area. He walked the ramp, his gaze locking on a curvy silhouette. The girl in the business suit leaned against the wall ahead, talking on the phone. Her delighted voice came to him, amplified by the overhang.
“I know, isn’t it wonderful, Trace? I have you to thank for this job.”
Cam scanned her slim figure, outlined against the light. Damn, she was easy on the eyes. Something about her capable touch in the treatment room and her focused attention for her patients, wrapped in that bombshell body did something to his insides. Something soft.
Hired, huh? The riders would be getting stomped, even if only to have her treat them. Maybe there actually might be a perk to getting older. He spent a lot of time in the treatment room.
He slowed his steps, waiting for her to finish her call. Maybe she’d like to share a steak.
“Are you kidding? You know athletes, they’re all the same. You should have seen this guy today, throwing things and pitching a fit like a tired two-year-old.”
Face burning, he walked past her, tipping his hat. “Pardon me, ma’am.” Only his mama’s manners kept him from the term he’d wanted to use.
Damn. Why do the good-looking ones have to be assholes?
CHAPTER
5
She never would have guessed Montana would be the gateway to her future. But then, there wasn’t much about the past three months she would have guessed. Three hours before her first day on the new job, Katya stood before the hotel bathroom mirror in her underwear, deciding what to do with her hair. Black crimps floated around her face like Medusa’s snakes. She wasn’t doing the bun thing again and risk being mistaken for a schoolteacher, but this style would frighten small children. She pulled a super-duty elastic from her camo ditty bag and banded the riot into a ponytail, as thick around as her wrist. Not stylish, but it would keep the hair out of her face.
“You’re not out to impress. You’re working, Katya.” Beneath her reflection’s huge grin, nerves and trepidation simmered. Tonight she stood at the edge of the long road back to her career, her healing and to her army family. She glanced at her watch. The squad in Kandahar would be heading to bed right about now. Those who weren’t standing night duty, anyway. She wrapped her fingers around the dog tags on a long chain around her neck. She knew she shouldn’t still be wearing them, but the familiar weight resting between her breasts helped soothe the hollow ache beneath them.
I’ll be back soon.
Her expression in the mirror looked familiar for the first time in weeks. She looked like a soldier; determined, tough, and ready.
I will.
A few steps from the bathroom, her suitcase lay open on the bed. A fake Indian pottery lamp illuminated the cream, orange, and brown striped wallpaper and the framed landscape print above the bed. Billings, Montana, might be miles from Washington in both distance and culture, but the chain motel rooms were the same. Maybe that would be a comfort, seeing how they’d be her home for a while. God willing, a short while. Home was wherever the army stationed her, because her family was there.
She stepped into a full-gored royal blue cotton skirt. Gypsy clothes made her feel closer to Grand, and today she needed any help her mentor might channel from beyond. She’d love to wear her off-shoulder blouses and bangle earrings, but they’d be too different from the denim uniforms she’d seen last weekend. Instead, she shrugged into a white fitted, collared shirt and stepped into flats.
She took a deep breath, anticipation zinging across her nerves. “Stay with me, Grand, I’m going in.”
An hour later, freezing wind bit into her legs when she stepped from the cab into the almost empty arena parking lot. She’d arrived early, wanting to find her way around before the cowboys showed up.
She squinted at the gunmetal gray clouds that seemed to rest on the roof of the arena, hoping they weren’t an omen. The wind snatched away her remaining wisps of warmth. She wrapped her light jacket tight around her ribs. Who knew Montana could be this cold in April? She paid the cabbie, then trotted to the glass doors spilling light into the overcast afternoon.
The door was locked.
Crap!
The arctic wind howled around the corner of the huge building to blast her, snatching her breath, tearing her eyes. Her desert-thin blood raced through her in a hopeless, frantic attempt to keep warm. She whipped her head right, then left, thinking that a wrong choice would find her dead, flash-frozen, like Jack Nicholson in that Stephen King movie. Hearing a diesel engine to the left, she jogged that way.
Around the corner, halfway down the block-long building, cargo doors stood open, idling semis lined up before it. She cupped her hands over her ears to keep them from breaking off and stomped toward the doors on frozen feet.
She ignored the odd looks from the men in winter coats, scarves, and hats, and scooted in ahead of a backing cattle truck. Just ducking out of the tundra wind felt like heaven, but she didn’t stop until she was well into the building, surrounded by a maze of pipe fence. There she stopped, bent over, and sucked the comparatively warm air into her hoar-frosted lungs.
“Are you okay, miss?”
A pair of scuffed cowboy boots stepped into her view. She looked up. Jeans, a bulky suede and fuzzy jacket, craggy face, and dark hair topped by a cowboy hat. The collar of a garish pink shirt peeked from the top of his coat, spoiling his young Marlboro Man look.
“I may live, thanks.” She straightened. Several enclosures behind the man sported hot pink bows that matched his shirt. “Could you tell me where I’d find the riders’ locker room?”
Katya followed the man’s directions, wending her way through the maze of pipe fence. What the heck was she going to say?
Mr. Cahill, I apologize for the conversation you overheard. I was only… Only what? Rude? Unprofessional?
Yeah, that. God, she’d been mortified.
And that was before she’d found the pictures of the baby-faced hardass while researching the PBR on the internet. Two-time world champion. Million-dollar cowboy. He’d almost single-handedly put the sport on the map. Cameron “Cool Hand” Cahill was the poster-boy for the PBR.
And she’d called him a spoiled two-year-old, almost to his face.
She bit the inside of her lip. Within an hour of nailing the job that would get her back to her real life, she’d managed to insult the guy with the influence to get her fired. She hadn’t meant to be mean. It had been a long, tense, confusing day, leaving her feeling like she’d fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole. Babbling to Trace was like reaching her foot down to touch the ground, testing that there was still somewhere she belonged.
Only there wasn’t. The army’s mental fitness test was like a slamming cell door, barring her from her home. She had never fit in her parents’ world of white wine and science. Chicago felt empty without Grand. She’d only said it to make herself feel better.
God, what an idiot. It took a small person to feel superior by putting someone else down.
The maze of fence spit her out behind the chutes. She squared her shoulders and walked a long tiled hallway not much different than the one last week. Best to just apologize, then ask if they could start over. After all, they didn’t have to like each other to work together.
The short heavyset medic from last weekend was alone when she walked in the training room.
“Oh good, you’re here early.” He huffed, lifting
equipment from huge battered plastic totes. “I’m glad of the help. We need to get ready before the first cowboys show up.” He straightened, swiped his hand on his jeans, and extended it. “I’m Dusty Bonner, by the way.”
“I’m Katya.” She shook his still damp hand. Sweat shone on his mottled face. “Are you okay? Maybe you should sit down and order me around for a bit.”
A blush filled in the mottled spots, turning his pudgy face a shade of ripe tomato. “Nah, I’m okay.” He pointed to a row of coolers lined up in the corner. “Can you finish moving the cool packs? I’ve got to get out the exercise bike and fire up the stim machine.”
A half hour later, the room was ready and the first patients had begun to wander in through the wide opening to the locker room. Dusty was icing an elbow, and she finished taping a cowboy’s sprained knee.
Boom! The metal door to the arena hall hit the wall.
Katya flinched and ducked.
She glanced up in time to see the door fly back from the wall. She straightened.
“I’ve returned, to save you all from fat-fingered, mediocre care.” A guy stood in the doorway, hands on hips like a superhero. With his black wavy hair, broad face, and lantern jaw, he looked like Clark Kent. But rather than tights and a streaming cape, he wore ivory cowboy boots, skintight jeans, and a Western shirt that hugged his chest in a perfect custom fit. “Well, Dusty, I see you haven’t managed to kill anyone. Yet.”
An imperious ice-blue gaze stopped on her. “Ah, and who is this?”
Dusty fumbled the pressure bandage he’d been holding. It fell, hit the floor, and unrolled. He scrambled to retrieve it, dropping it again. “Edward Enwright, meet Katya. Katya Smith.”
He crossed the room and caught her hand.
“I am smitten.” His deep southern drawl dripped like sun-warmed honey. His eyes never left hers as he lifted her hand to his mouth, turned it over, and kissed her palm.
That broke her immobility. She snatched her hand away and thrust it behind her back. Her heart pounded blood to her cheeks. She stood shocked by his unprofessionalism as much as his presumption. “I was working.”
The warmth of his charm flicked off with the flash of a burned-out lightbulb. His patrician features went cold. He looked over her head at Dusty. “Who is she here for?” With a shrug of his shoulders, he slouched out of his courtly demeanor. “She doesn’t look like a buckle bunny.” He walked to the long counter, set down his gym bag, and unzipped it.
Buckle bunny?
The cowboys in the room found fascinating details on the floor, and on the ceiling.
She shot a glance to Dusty, who looked away fast.
Dusty smoothed the cowboy’s knee wrap, then taped it in place. “Edward’s our third athletic trainer; our joint guy.”
Doc Cody strode into the room. “Afternoon, everyone.” He tossed his cowboy hat on a massage table and crossed to the sink to wash his hands. “Hello, Katya. Welcome to the sports medicine team. Have you met the other members?”
She looked away from Edward’s raised eyebrows and tight, disapproving lips. “I have. Thank you, sir.”
Cam Cahill walked through the wide opening that led to the locker room, bare-chested, shirt in hand. “Howdy, everybody.” His gaze flicked past Katya as if she didn’t exist.
Edward patted the padded table next to him. “Let’s get that shoulder ready, Cam.” He reached for the wand of the TENS machine.
“Hold up a minute.” Doc Cody dried his hands. “Stimulation hasn’t been giving him much relief. Let’s see if a massage will do a better job of loosening the joint.”
“Okay, I’m good with that.” Edward put down the wand and stepped to Cam’s side.
The doctor dropped the towel on the edge of the sink. “Katya is our new deep tissue expert. I have it on good authority that she has magic hands. Why don’t you let her handle that?”
The cowboys hung on every word like housewives watching a Friday soap opera. Her face felt like it would burst into flame. Oh, Trace is dead meat. He must have blabbed her college nickname when Doc Cody called him for a reference.
“Magic hands, huh?” It sounded dirty, coming out of Edward’s mouth. “It looks like this is your lucky day, Cam.” He stepped away from the table.
If Doc Cody noticed the sarcasm, he ignored it. “Why don’t you finish taping Mario’s knee, Edward?” He walked to a skinny kid seated near the door, missing Edward’s frown. “Okay Jesse, let’s check that concussion and see if you can ride.”
Katya snapped to attention. She strode to where her bag rested on the counter beside the table. This was it. The moment she’d both dreaded and yearned for; the first test of her ability. Well, Lord knows, Cam Cahill’s perfect chest should help distract her. And maybe she’d get a chance to apologize. She was relieved to see that, though her resolve shook, her hands did not.
From her bag, she pulled out the big gun—Grand’s gypsy oil. Katya had tweaked the recipe, doctoring it with frankincense, finding that the exotic scent relaxed the patient. She poured a teaspoonful in her palm to warm it before lifting her hand to her nose. Right now, she could use a little relaxation. Stepping to the table, she closed her eyes, shutting out the man lying on it, the cowboys, and her fear.
Massage had always been her favorite art. Done correctly, it was more instinct than knowledge. Katya didn’t massage; her hands and spirit did. She’d step away in her head, allowing something more knowing to flow into her hands.
She took a deep breath through her nose and blew it out slowly. She pictured Grand at her dining table, grinding herbs. When the fresh spicy smell filled her head and she could almost see the curtains billowing at Grand’s window, Katya rubbed her palms together and touched Cam.
Her fingers got acquainted with skin first, sliding over the smooth suppleness, warming it. When the oil coated the entire shoulder, her fingers sought deeper, exploring the sheathed muscle beneath, testing, pinching, rolling, as if it were bread dough under her fingertips. Muscles were an athlete’s building blocks, and the tools of their trade. Her fingers worshipped them, slow and strong. The muscle responded, trusting her, opening, releasing its tautness.
When the muscle lay loose and pliable, her fingers delved deeper, to the tendons and connective tissue. There, they located the damage, close to the bone. The tendons were rigid and strained, tired from guarding the shoulder against pain and more injury. Gently, firmly, her fingers stroked the tendon’s length, thanking them for their vigilance, but letting them know it was safe to let go. They lay down before her, stretching and relaxing.
Katya smiled at his moan. Cam lay, eyes closed, completely relaxed. She doubted he even knew he’d made a sound. His features in repose lost the hard look of a man; Katya saw what his mother must have seen, looking down on her sleeping little boy. She couldn’t help her soft smile. Vulnerability in a grown man was rare. She felt the surprise of delight, as if she’d come upon a deer grazing in a glen.
As if sensing her regard, his eyes opened. Blue-sky eyes with starbursts of white fractures radiating from the iris. His brows came together in a frown. A mask fell over his features. “Thank you.” He rolled his shoulder.
She wouldn’t find a better time than this. “Mr. Cahill, I want to apologize for my behavior last week. It was unprofessional and mean-spirited. I only hope—”
He tensed and sat up. He located his shirt at the bottom of the table and shrugged into it. “It doesn’t matter.” He hopped off the table and strode to the locker room.
But his tone told her it did.
Four hours later Cam sat with Tucker at a booth of the chain restaurant next to their hotel.
“Well, I gotta admit, you were sticky tonight, partner.” Tucker shoveled syrup-smeared blueberry pancakes in his mouth. “Too bad the bull wasn’t much. You’re gonna need a good draw tomorrow to make it to the short round.”
Cam hadn’t wanted the fake eggs or the dry toast. But his vest had been getting tight lately, and it probably wasn’t shrink
ing. He finished chewing the dry wad and swallowed. “Damn, Tuck, didn’t your mother teach you not to talk with your mouth full?”
“I only worry about that stuff when there are women around.” Tuck picked up a piece of bacon and ate half of it in one bite.
“Obviously.” Cam remembered three years ago when he was that age. He could eat three servings of all-you-can-eat pancakes, and never have it show. He took a sip of coffee and eyed his friend’s dinner. “You’re sitting pretty for tomorrow though. An eighty-eight gets you second pick in the draft.”
Tucker looked up from his plate for the first time since the waitress set it in front of him. “When are you going to cut the crap and tell me what you decided? You selling out?”
Cam and Tucker came from the same hometown, so it was natural they’d travel together when Tucker made the circuit. They’d become good friends and had gone partners together, five years ago, buying land for a ranch outside Bandera, Texas. That was before Tuck met Nancy. They’d married and settled on that land in the modern ranch house snugged up against the road, and produced Randy, Cam’s two-year-old godson.
“Nah. Looks like you and Nancy are stuck with a third wheel for a while yet.”
Tucker grinned. “Damned glad to hear it.”
“You just want a babysitter nearby so you and Nancy can go dancing.”
“Hell, yeah.” Tucker loaded his fork again. “Besides, if it weren’t for him and me, you’d never have any company up at the Monastery.”
“Yeah, well, screw you too.” After playing “Cool Hand” on the road, Cam wanted a place to get away, so he took the old log cabin up in the woods, as far from the road as the property line would allow.
He’d always been a loner. So why had the prospect of settling down on the ranch started to feel like a prison sentence?
“I don’t know why our plan of running a cow-calf operation won’t work.”